Willy Wonka and the Fairy Tale Brides
by KaterineKasdorf
Summary: Premovie. Willy Wonka is given the chance to be immortal. The only catch? He has to choose a bride from FairyTale land.
1. Chapter 1

You may have heard many stories about that most famous of chocolatiers, Willy Wonka, but have you ever heard of the time he nearly became a fairy tale creature?

It happened like this. One night as Willy Wonka was kneeling by his bed to say his nighttime prayers – his bedroom, like any other part of the fantastic factory was, well, fantastic! The whole thing was constructed of glass, which was unfortunate for poor Willy on the times when he bailed out of bed in the dark to fetch a drink of water. You can imagine how difficult it is to find a glass door when your eyes are bleary with sleep, and how easy it is to forget the distance from a given point to the clear glass walls. The whole clear glass room was submerged every night under the chocolate waterfall that made Wonka chocolate so frothy and perfect. Sometimes before he went to sleep under his Egyptian-cotton-candy sheets with his head pillowed on an enormous marshmallow (A perfect way to solve the problem of dreaming that you are eating and waking up to find you no longer have a pillow, marshmallow is much more digestible than feathers.), Willy Wonka would flip a switch so that the ordinary sort of light that helped him change into his pajamas was gone and the room instead gave off a soft purple-y light. He would fall asleep while watching the purple-y brown chocolate pour over and around the clear room. – But as I was saying, one night when Willy Wonka had knelt by the side of the bed, to say his prayers with his huge peppermint-striped bathrobe billowing around him and a funny chocolate drop nightcap secured on his head, he was visited. Now Willy Wonka was quite used to being visited by a brilliant idea, but for a creature to show up in his private bedroom in bodily form after the room had been submerged and the purple-y light was on was quite unusual. So unusual, in fact, that when the thing appeared just as Willy Wonka had said, "If I should die before I wake," he thought for sure it was an angel come to fetch him to heaven and started squawking, "I take it back! I take it back!" and backing up against the wall to keep away from the apparition. After several unsuccessful attempts at quiet Mr. Wonka, the creature just sat calmly on the edge of his bed, crossing her legs and watching the hysterical Willy Wonka. When at last poor Willy had plastered himself against the wall, and his screams had quieted to the sound of a mouse-like squeaking, the creature deigned to talk to him.

"Are you done now?" she asked coolly.

His huge, round eyes were huger and rounder than usual, and he kept wishing that he hadn't have the abominable habit of hanging his candy-cane in his wardrobe beside his other identical candy-canes, but he managed to nod at the little winged creature who sat so primly on his bed.

"Good," she said, and rose from the bed with the daintiest movements of her pale pink wings. With every beat the wings seemed to shed silver glitter, and there was always the faint sound of ringing bells when she talked. She was really a pleasant little personage to look at when she didn't appear in your bedroom unexpected at the dead of night. She was only about the size of an Oompa-Loompa, and a good deal prettier, with big blue eyes and a rosebud mouth and lots of golden curls piled onto her head and held in place by pink roses. Besides the pale pink wings she had a gown in shades of pink that exposed nicely her feet encased in (what else?) pink slippers. To finish to whole thing off she held in her hand the daintiest wand imaginable, all silver, bedecked with ribbons and rosebuds. Very lovely. All right, she was a pink fright, but I don't think she knew that. Only Willy Wonka and I, and now you are aware of the fact that little fairies gowned in sickening pink are more likely to make you want to hurl than to fall into raptures at their tiny feet. At any rate, she fluttered along until she was hovering right at eye level with Willy Wonka and touching his white nose with the tip of her wand she said, "How long are you likely to live?"

Now if you have been interrupted from your bedtime prayers by a pink horror who you first mistake for an angel come to take you to Abraham's bosom, and you finally manage to calm yourself only to hear her ask how long you will live, you will likely react as poor Willy did. He let off another high-pitched scream and dove under his bed just like a little boy.

What? You find it disturbing to think of a sort-of-growed man behaving that way? All right. We'll change the story just a little bit.

He dashed for his wardrobe, and opening it lay hold of the first candy-cane his fingers touched. He brandished it over his head and advanced on the little fairy, his eyes bugging almost out of his head, "I warn you, lil' fly," he said in a hoarse whisper, "I've been highly trained in the art of - " here he paused and looked around wildly for inspiration. Glancing at his pillow he grinned wickedly and said, "The art of Jet-Puff-Tae-Do!" Then he executed a series of elaborate movements with his cane, but the fairy did not seem to be properly frightened. In fact, when his cane came perilously close to her dainty self, she merely caught it in her perfect little hand and used it to swatt him once on the head. He crumpled gracefully to the floor and said, "Ow!" which is really the only sensible thing to say in such cases. The fairy glided slowly to the floor beside him, her be-slippered pointed toe reaching the ground first. She lay his cane down at his side in a show of good faith and said quite sweetly, "I mean you no harm."

Which is actually not that reassuring coming from an Oompa-Loompa sized ballerina demon who has just clobbered you with something ten times her own size. Wisely Willy thought it wasteful to reply. Seeing that she had his full attention at last, the fairy proceeded to tell him the purpose of her unexpected visit.

"My name is Prettylina, and I am the Fairy in Charge of Populating Fairy Land, the F.C.P.F.L. for short." She stopped for a moment to think of how to continue her story, and Willy took the time to sit up and lean against his bed. "Fairy Land is sadly under-populated these days because children have stopped believing in fairy tales."

That got a response out of Willy Wonka. "O don't I know it. You wouldn't believe how many kids don't even know how to make believe any more. I can't even sell most of my best candy 'cause the lil' girls and boys jus don't believe in it."

"Quite," said the fairly coolly, because she was not used to being interrupted. Willy Wonka knew he had offended her and the corners of his purple-ish mouth turned down, but he kept very silent for a few seconds. "Quite so, and we don't know how to make them start believing again," she continued, "But we have to keep Fairy Land populated! At least, I have to because it is my job." With a shower of silver glitter the fairy rose from the ground and began to fly thoughtfully around the room. "It has been appointed to me to find the people on earth who have the best imaginations, and the most magic. I have been given the authority to make them citizens of Fairy Land."

Willy's eyebrows shot up when he heard this, "Well, golly gee Miss Fairy that's a swell deal!" She cleared her throat delicately at his second interruption, and he looked at the floor apologetically, mouthing, "Sorry."

"As you might have guessed from my presence here, you have been deemed worthy to join the ranks of the fairy folk and live forever."

"Well, that's just peachy keen 'cause I was startin to worry about who would take care of my factory and my beloved Oompa-Loompas once I was – you know…" he coughed.

"Dead?" asked the fairy in a sweet voice that was a little bit threatening.

"Yeah," he said and swallowed, determining not to say another word.

"Good then," she said, coming to land on a small armchair, carefully dodging the fingers, "The brides will arrive tomorrow."

Now Willy Wonka had interrupted the fairy too many times, and seen her threatening looks too many times, to say anything now, but he was busting inside to know what she meant by that last comment. She seemed to know, too, how badly he wanted to ask the question, but she was clearly enjoying his discomfort. This went on for several long, quiet moments, till at last the fairy decided that she had had enough of teasing Willy Wonka and got back to business.

She cleared her throat and began reciting, "In order for mortals of non-magic status to join the ranks of immortals of magic status, said mortals must join in matrimony with an immortal of their own choosing. If said mortal wishes at any time to abolish the bonds that tie said mortal to chosen immortal, mortal relinquishes all rights to magic and immortality. If the chosen immortal wishes at any time to break the sacred bonds of marriage, the mortal is not to be held responsible and retains all magical rights," she gave a relieved sigh when she finished this and looked expectantly at Willy.

He stood up, frowning, and began to pace his room, careful not to run into any walls. After a few minutes he turned to the fairy to ask a question, "You can make me live forever and have magical powers?"

"Yes," she replied.

"And all I have to do is marry some fairytale creature?"

"Yes."

"But I get to choose?"

"Yes"

He nodded and resumed his pacing before a thought made him stop, "The choices aren't just lil people like you are they?"

Of course, she was understandably offended by this question and did not favor him with a response. He shrugged and sat on the edge of his bed. "All right then! I'll do it!"

The fairy smiled and took to the air again, coming to hover right in front of Willy Wonka. "Tomorrow then," she said, and with a poof of glittery pink smoke she disappeared.

"Tomorrow," repeated Willy Wonka, somewhat mournfully.


	2. Chapter 2

The first of the candidates showed up the next morning.

Willy's alarm clock had gone off promptly at 8-ish that morning. It was a nice alarm clock, that started the wake-up cycle be releasing the scent of fresh chocolate into the air. Then it started to glow with a soft plum light that grew brighter and purple-er as time progressed, until exactly at 8-ish it began to play in most cheerful tones, "Willy Wonka! Willy Wonka! That famous chocolatier!" It's a delightful way to be awakened. After brushing his teeth and dressing himself impeccably, Willy Wonka activated the controls that made his glass room rise up the waterfall, giving him a stunning good-morning view of the chocolate room. From there his room went to rest in its proper resting spot, but he was never sure exactly where that was, because when he reached the top of the waterfall his door opened and he stepped into the glass elevator, which was ready to take him anywhere he needed to go. Of course, sometimes the room, or the elevator, or both would be in a mischievous mood and not open the doors. This morning Willy was especially careful of that trick, and tapped the space in front of him with his cane to be sure that the room had opened the door. "HA!" he shouted in triumph when he tapped glass, "Thought you got me this time," he said with a smirk as the door swooshed open and he walked cockily straight into the elevator's door. He didn't even reply to the smug attitude of the elevator, but his mouth was turned down at the corners, and he flexed his hands, making the rubber squeak threateningly. The elevator had the decency then to seem to be sorry.

"Hmmph," sniffed Willy Wonka, taking his time peering at the hundreds of buttons. "Candy and flowers, that's the way to a woman's heart," he muttered, "Candy we've got, but flowers…" his voice trailed off as he tried to think of what he could offer his lady in place of roses. At last a smile creased his face. "A lovely basket of candy apples might be just the thing," he decided, pushing the proper button.

Around ten o'clock that morning, Willy Wonka was waiting anxiously in his chocolate room for his potential bride. He had been waiting for just enough time to set his nerves on edge. When he first entered the room he had been too flustered to take his usual time to notice the beauty of the room. He sat down on a rock candy rock, his gift tucked by his feet, but then he began to think that this was perhaps not the best way to present himself. He'd taken extra care dressing that morning. His jacket and pants were a lovely milk chocolate brown, the tails of his jacket gradually darkening to the color of bitter dark chocolate. His toffee cream colored shirt was an elaborately ruffled one, and for this special occasion he had put on a brand new pair of squeaky gloves, brown of course, and even foregone his usual dapper top hat for a russet felt bowler.

Overall, he felt it was a pleasing effect, but now as he sat on this rock he thought that maybe he blended in too well. The lady's first view of him would be more dramatic if he was leaning against a marzipan tree with its brilliant red fruits. On reaching this conclusion he jumped to his feet and snatched up the apple basket, sprinting to the nearest marzipan tree. This particular tree was really stunning. It looked a bit like a weeping cherry tree, except that nothing in this place could ever weep, so Willy Wonka had instead called it a sleeping cherry tree. The long branches that hung out over the chocolate river did look as if sleep had made them entirely too heavy for the tree to hold up. Willy had always been pleased with the graceful sleeping cherry trees, but now as he looked at its smooth lines he realized that it had not really been grown with leaning in mind. He sat down his apple basket and attempted to lean against the drooping branches, but they did not hold up his weight and he found himself deposited unceremoniously on the ground in an undignified heap. "Well!" he said aloud. His next thought was to lean against the trunk of the tree, so he fought his way through the tangled limbs to the crusty brown sugar bark of the trunk and leaned against it languidly. It was a pose meant to be masculine and enticing, but it is hard to do either of those when you are tangled up in marzipan and brown sugar. Besides, the brilliant gleam of the candy apples would be greatly diminished by the splendor of the marzipan cherries. With a sigh Willy Wonka dropped to his knees and crawled out from under the stuffy tent of branches, wiped the cake mix dirt from his knees, and stood up.

The trick was to pick a spot in his chocolate room that had colors that would complement his dashing attire, somewhat less dashing now, being liberally decorated with cake mix, brown sugar, and bright red marzipan. "Now what goes better with brown, brown, brown, and red than…" he looked around thoughtfully until his eyes caught sight of a brilliant flash of orange, "pumpkins!" he shouted triumphantly, scurrying toward the pumpkin patch, tripping on a root and sending rosy red apples bouncing all over the minty grass. Now if I, or even you, had been there, we might have told dear Willy that orange and red really clash terribly, but he was so excited at his find that he might not have listened anyway. At any rate, after he had rescued all of the apples except for the one that now graced his left elbow, wiping them free of mint stain and returning them somewhat bruised to their basket, he found a comfy perch in the midst of the pumpkin patch and sat and waited.

And waited.

And waited.

It wasn't until he'd been waiting for almost two hours that he realized that Prettylina had failed to mention the exact time that the first fairy tale lady would arrive. They'd agreed that the lovely chocolate room would give him the best chance to impress fair lady. At first Willy had wanted the lady to show up at the front gate so she could see the impressive puppet song and dance number he'd created, but Prettylina, who seemed to know a lot about the factory had sniffed disdainfully and vetoed that idea. After that there was really no better place to see first than the chocolate room, which even the fairy seemed to be impressed at. They'd departed with a sense of satisfaction, but now Willy realized that the fairy tale lady might not even show up until dinner time. He was just considering jumping in his elevator for a quick peek into the inventing room when his watch cuckooed ten. And then he saw her.

Actually, she made an entrance that put any he'd ever made to shame. First a particularly large pumpkin to his left began to swell to enormous proportions, changing color from orange to silver as it did, and developing the accoutrements of a full-grown carriage. When it was finally finished growing, the door swung open, and out of the depths of the carriage a dainty glass-slippered foot appeared and rested on the step. Next came a slender hand, but it merely poised in the air as if waiting for something. Willy looked in awe at the carriage and the hand and the foot, but after a few awkward moments he began to worry that Prettylina had sent him a hand and foot to marry. If there was anything else inside of the carriage, it seemed to have no inclination to come out. Willy coughed, and then cleared his throat meaningfully, but still nothing happened. The foot was still poised on the step and the hand still extended into the air. Willy rocked from one foot to the other, completely at a loss. At last he gathered up a little courage and tapped lightly on the side of the carriage.

"Hello in there?" he said softly, "Everything all right."

"If you please," a voice said coolly, making Willy jump several feet in the air and yelp.

"You really shouldn't scare people like that!" he remonstrated, leaning weakly against the side of the pumpkin – carriage. "You just let me think that you were nothing but an arm and a leg and then a voice comes out of nowhere," he grimaced as a thought came to him and he dared to peer into the darkness of the carriage. "It's not your arm talking, is it?"

"Of course not," came the exasperated voice, "and if you would be so kind as to assist me, the rest of me would appear."

Now Willy Wonka really had no way of knowing that the hand was extended for him to grasp and hold as the lady descended from the carriage, but blind luck was with him, because he thought the lady was unable to come out of the carriage on her own, and as her hand was the only visible part of her (even Willy Wonka would not grab a lady's leg) he was forced to clasp onto it and pull her bodily from the carriage. It was not quite what she was expecting, and she nearly fell flat on her feet, but by a trick a fairy tale gracefulness she caught her balance after a few stumbling steps forward and then whirled to face Willy Wonka.

You already know the eccentric sight that met her eyes, from the bowler set upon the odd haircut to the pointy-toed boots. What he saw was a lithe girl, perhaps in her twenties or so, although with fairy tale creatures it was hard to tell. She had straight golden hair, clipped back from a very pretty face, and large, expressive blue eyes. Although she had the manners of a queen, and had arrived in an elegant carriage, she was dressed very simply, in a dark blue woolen gown with a sash of paler blue tied around her waist. The fanciest thing about her was the delicate pair of glass slippers on her tiny feet. She was, of course, Cinderella, as _you_ likely guessed when she appeared in a pumpkin carriage. Willy Wonka, however, had not grown up on fairy tales, and hadn't the foggiest notion of who the girl was.

She glared at him for a while, trying to decide whether or not she should reprimand him for his lack of manners, and then wisely decided that she could teach him all of that after they were married. Instead, she gave him her most winsome, shy smile, and extended her hand. He flinched and snarled up his lip, looking at the outstretched hand as if it were a slimy toad. He knew enough to know what he was supposed to do this time, but he hated touching people. He flexed his latex glove once, then quickly, as if her were pulling a loose tooth and just wanted to get it over with, shot out his hand and squeezed hers, pumping it once, and then dropped it as if it were on fire. This necessary formality over, he breathed a sigh of relief.

"Welcome to Willy Wonka's amazing chocolate factory," he recited, "we're terribly pleased that you decided to visit us." It was then that he remembered that the little speech had gestures, all of which he had forgotten. He quickly executed them: first the right hand stretched out in welcome, then the left sweeping out to indicate the factory, and last both hands clasped together. That done he pointed stiffly to himself, "I am Willy Wonka." His speech finished he dropped both hands to his side and looked at her expectantly.

She dropped a lovely curtsey, something he had not seen done before, and then said in her sweetest tones, "And I am Cinderella. I am most pleased to meet you, Mr. Wonka."

"Oh please," he said trying to sound pleasant, "you must call me," he cleared his throat, "Willy." It must be said that he failed miserably at being pleasant, but Cinderella was too well bred to mention it. Instead she said,

"And you must call me 'Ella."

His only reply to that was his trademark giggle. "Maybe you'd like to see the factory?" he asked. She smiled in reply and slipped her hand through the crook of his arm. His eyes widened to gigantic proportion, but he managed not to fling away her hand. "This way, then," he said, leading her toward the bridge. He'd been so shocked by his meeting that he left the basket of candy apples lying in the pumpkin patch.


	3. Chapter 3

Cinderella took a few moments to admire the lovely, if strange vista of the chocolate room. The experiences of a humble cinder maiden cum fairy tale princess had brought her to many curious places, but she was certain that none were quite so curious as this room. Though she did recognize some of the plants, the pumpkin patch, for example, was quite familiar if a _little_ different from normal pumpkin patches, for the most part the trees and flowers and plants in the huge room were a strange kind that she had never seen before. She turned to Willy Wonka to ask him the name of a particularly strange flower, patting his arm to get his attention when she realized for the first time the sad state of disarray that Willy's clothes were in. She grimaced and pulled her hand from his arm, her hand coming away sticky with some unnamable red substance.

"Are you – bleeding?" she asked curiously, although the red stuff didn't seem to be blood.

"What?" he asked, stopping his brisk walk and frowning at the little blonde.

"You've got some weird red stuff on your arm," she explained, wiping it on her woolen dress.

"Oh," he said, "Yeah, I forgot." He turned sharply on his heels and headed back for the pumpkin patch leaving a bewildered Cinderella to stare after him, noting the other stains and grime on the once dapper brown suit.

"Did you get into a fight?" she asked after him, "Or something…?" her voice trailed off questioningly as Willy came back carrying a slightly squished basket. He presented it with a proud smile. "Ah," she said, taking it from his hand and looking at the very damaged red fruit. "That explains the sticky red stuff, then," she mumbled.

"How's that?" he asked.

She paused, unwilling to tell him her opinion of the fruit. She naturally wished to make a good impression on the chocolatier, and be known in Fairy Tale land as the first to bring in a new citizen. Instead she smiled and turned on the feminine charm. "I was only saying," she said sweetly, "that this is very lovely fruit, and wondering if you grew it yourself."

"Oh, yeah," he said with an elaborate twirl of his cane. "We grow it all right here in the factory. I can take ya to the orchard if ya want. I've got a boat that will take us there."

Now Cinderella was a woman, and was thus naturally curious, but there was a war between that part of her nature and another part – the cleaning maid part. The momentary sideline of the candy apples had not distracted her from the dilapidated appearance of Willy's suit, and the maid part of her desperately wanted to clean the various stains from the brown cloth. The maid part won out.

"Actually," she admitted, "I was wondering if you wouldn't let me clean and press your suit."

"Huh?" he queried. She delicately touched the red spot on his elbow and brushed some cake mix from his shoulder. He frowned as he saw what she was talking about. "Well," he said with some disgust, "That's just – gross."

She agreed with him, "Absolutely. And I'm terribly good at getting off stains, so if you want to just," she floundered, waving indistinctly at his clothing, "just put on a robe or something, I can wash it out in the river."

Willy Wonka was faced with a quandary. There was a part of him that was taken aback by Cinderella's request and wanted to tell her to buzz off, but another part of him was remembering that lovely little immortality bonus, making chocolate for all eternity, and keeping the dear Oompa-Loompas safe. The second part won out.

"Well, yeah!" Willy squawked. "I'll just have one of the Oompa-Loompas bring down my robe an - "

"Splendid," she interrupted. "Just do it spit-spot and we'll have you all cleaned up in no time."

Thirty minutes later found Willy enshrouded in his fluffy robe enthroned on a rock-candy-rock. (As a side note, have you ever sat on rock candy? It's a bit prickly and painful, but Willy didn't even notice. That's how bothered he was.) A few feet away on the grass was Cinderella, her sleeves rolled up above the elbow as she scrubbed away at his suit. The thirty minutes had been dreadful beyond belief. First had been Cinderella's surprise at the sight of the Oompa-Loompas and her insistence on calling them "toad-men."

"One of my dear friends kissed one once and he turned into a prince, but I've always thought she was taking a risk," she told him when he protested.

He thought of telling her that he thought that the prince was the one taking the risk, but thinking of that lovely immortality, he resisted. The next trouble had come when the robe had been procured and Willy had needed a place to change. Cinderella wouldn't hear of him calling for his room or leaving or anything. She told him just to hop into her carriage and change out of those "nasty rags." So poor Willy had climbed into the overgrown pumpkin and changed out of his soiled suit as quickly as possible, leaping from the dark interior as he was still tying the belt of his robe.

The final problem was when Cinderella actually got a good look at the river and realized that it was dark brown. Of course she started to lecture him about the importance of a clean water supply, but he informed her with pride that the river was pure frothy chocolate. Cinderella was momentarily distracted by that thought, because, after all, it _was_ chocolate! But the dirty clothing weighed heavily on her mind, so in a matter of minutes she turned the Oompa-Loompas into her own personal work force, and in almost no time had a wash tub full of warm water, a bar of soap, a washboard, and another tub of clean cool water.

"How do your clothes normally get clean?" she asked Willy.

"Doris or Emelda pick them up for me," he said mournfully, tucking his feet up underneath him.

"And Doris and Emelda clean them?" persisted the busy blonde.

"No. Doris and Emelda burn them up and then bring them back to life. That's why I've always called my clothes my phoenixes. Of course it gets complicated whenever you try to go shopping and ask for a blue phoenix coat."

The sarcasm was not lost on Cinderella, but she just "humphed" and continued her cleaning. When at last the suit and shirt were cleaned dried and the hat neatly brushed and the shoes shined, Cinderella told Willy to get dressed again. That meant another intense moment in the confines of the pumpkin carriage, but Willy got through it all right. Those last few minutes in the carriage had decided him, though. Cinderella was definitely not a woman that he could be tied to for all eternity. He would tell her that. As soon as he got out of the carriage. He would. He was getting out. She was looking at him expectantly. He coughed. He cleared his throat. He coughed again.

"I…" he managed.

"Yes?" she said with her eyebrows upraised.

He weakened. "Are you ready to eat?"


	4. Chapter 4

Late that night an exhausted Willy Wonka collapsed in his warm, soft bed, which by the way, now smelled "fresh as a spring morning" thanks to a woman who proved that you can take the maid out of the kitchen but you can't take the maid out of the girl. Thanks to this same fairy-tale woman the entire factory had been scrubbed from top to bottom and now instead of smelling like warm chocolaty things, it smelled like pine forest and freshly squeezed lemon and the undisguisable smell of bleach. It was going to take weeks to get that horrible smell out of the chocolate. Willy planned to apply for damages to Prettylina, but for now all he wanted to do was sleep and forget the nightmare of a day he'd had. It was not to be.

No sooner had he turned off his lights and cuddled down under his covers than he heard a tinkly bell sound. "It can't be," he groaned into his Jet-Puffed pillow.

"It is," said a very sweet, very irritating voice. Willy rolled over and smacked the wall switch, illuminating his room with a very bright white light. Both Willy and Prettylina spent a few seconds blinking and trying to adjust to the flood of light.

"No need to get all dressed up just for me," said Willy sarcastically, once he could see. Prettylina was wearing a getup identical to the one she had worn when Willy first met her, except this one was pale blue instead of pink. To be fair, it was a bit better looking than the horrid pink concoction, but to be honest, it was still pretty bad.

If Prettylina caught on to the sarcasm and saw it for the veiled put-down it really was she didn't let on. All she did was smile and smooth her skirt. "Well?" she said.

"Well what?" grumbled Willy Wonka, sitting up in his bed a shaking his head a little to clear it.

"What do you mean, well what?" Prettylina said. "Well how was it? How was the day with Cinderella? She's very lovely, isn't she?"

"Lovely. Real jewel of a girl," he said, and this time she did catch the sarcasm.

"Why surely you can't find anything wrong with Cinderella!" she said in surprise, "Why she's as lovely as her name!"

Willy opened his mouth and then shut it, looking at Prettylina with his head cocked to one side. "You know what? I'm not even going to go there. It's just too easy."

"So I suppose you have prettier girls here in this factory. You have a fondness for frog-women?"

"Ahhhh. So you've been comparing notes with Cinderella!" he shouted. "Oompa-Loompas. They're Oompa-Loompas. From Loompa Land!"

"There's no such place," said Prettylina primly, sitting on the end of Willy Wonka's bed. He had an evil urge to kick and send her flying across the room, but he settled for saying, "And there's no Fairy Land either," in his smuggest voice.

Prettylina nodded her head, to acknowledge that Willy had a point. "All right, then, you found Cinderella not lovely enough for you."

"It's not that," he moaned, "She's a very pretty girl and all, but why does she have to clean all the time? My whole factory smells like Mr. Clean world now. Have you ever had bleach flavored cookies?" Prettylina wrinkled her nose. "Yeah! That's what I thought. It just wouldn't work with us. I need to be free…"

Prettylina crossed her legs and swung the top one back and forth silently. He had a point. Cinderella was known to clean everything from the Glass Hill to the homes of the Three Little Pigs. Not an easy undertaking. In fact, the fairies were particularly afraid of her because she abhorred any kind of dust, including fairy dust. Tinkerbell hadn't been able to fly for a week after…

"Ahem," Willy Wonka cleared his throat pointedly, "If that's all?" he said, motioning that he'd really like to go back to sleep.

Prettylina beat her wings and rose into the air again. "Very well," she said, "I will send the next candidate to you tomorrow morning promptly at ten. Be sure that you are in the Chocolate Room when she arrives. Be clean," she said, "And," over his attempted protests, "try to get a little present for her. It's only polite." With that she was gone, and Willy was left alone to contemplate what surprises the morning might bring.


	5. Chapter 5

Rejoice, dear hearts, and be glad! The wayward authoress has at last returned!

* * *

Alarm clocks are the most contrary things in the whole world. Well, except for weather, women, and cheesecakes. Still, they have a tricky habit of never working when they should. Willy Wonka's alarm should have gone off promptly at 8:30-ish that morning to give him plenty of time to be dressed and ready when his guest arrived. As it happened the clock didn't go off at all and something else entirely woke him.

He was right in the middle of a terrible nightmare involving frogwomen who once kissed turned into pink terrors who made special bleach cookies when a large object fell from above and landed smack on him. Have you ever had something happen in the real world that translated differently in your dream world? In this instance Willy Wonka's dream told him that his frogwoman-turned-pink-terror wife had just pitched a pan of bleach cookies at his head and the only way to save himself was to push them away with all his might. So he did. And immediately woke to see something crumpled at the opposite side of his glass room.

"Oh dear," he murmured. It's not the best thing to wake up to, really. I mean, you expect that the pan of bleach cookies is nothing more than your quilt and that you were really jolted awake by your alarm clock. You don't expect to find that you really have thrown something large and moderately heavy across your room. (Something which appears to have absolutely nothing in common with cookies except that it has perhaps eaten too many of them.)

Willy rolled out of his bed and slunk to the cabinet to retrieve a candy cane. (Despite his fear in the moment he noted approvingly that it was a stunning mahogany cane with a cream de menthe centre.) Once the reassuring object was in his hand he dared approach the… whatever it was. Standing as far away as was possible he stretched out the cane and touched the something tentatively, then jumped back. If anyone had been around to see him they might have thought he was remarkably like a cat when it encounters an unfamiliar object and dances about it poking it with its little paws. At any rate, when the something did not react he dared step a little closer and poke with his cane. It was then that Willy Wonka realized that the "something" was actually a girl, and quite possibly his future bride.

He stood up straight, his cane clattering to the ground, stuttering and stammering as he went, "I'm so terribly sorry. You see, I wasn't expecting you until later, except that maybe later is now (or it could be that now is actually later) because my alarm didn't go off, and anyway I didn't think you'd be coming up here. And maybe you were waiting for me there for a long time and just came up to see me which is fine but then you jumped on me and that was kind of scary plus we barely even know each other and maybe we should just be friends first and…"

At some point during his rather embarrassing tirade it came to Willy Wonka's mind that the girl had not moved since he poked her, and that she was not reacting to what he was saying. "Um," he cleared his throat and shifted his feet a little, trying to see her face which was currently hidden by a mass of very long, very blonde hair. "Um, hi, sorry. I know we've got off to an awkward start, but maybe we should try this again?" She didn't respond but he thought that might be an agreement. "Right." He said nodding as he bent to pick up his cane. "My name is Willy Wonka. Welcome to my factory. I'm so pleased that you came to meet me today. May I ask your name?" During the very long pause that followed a terrible thought came into Willy Wonka's head. "What if I killed her?"

When he thought that he let out a long wail and dropped to his knees beside the still form. "I'm so sorry! I didn't mean it! Come back!" By now he had grabbed her shoulder and turned her so that she was half lying on his lap. "Come back to the light!" He shook her until her blonde hair whipped him in the face. "You still have your whole life ahead of you!"

The long-suppressed hero in Willy Wonka came to the forefront and he snapped into action. Perhaps the girl was only on the brink of death. If he could do something to shock her back into life… He knew that when people fainted they could be revived with a little cold water on their faces. Maybe when they were dead they could be revived by complete immersion? "Water water everywhere…" He muttered as he danced nervously around the room trying to think. It was at that unfortunate moment that he looked out of his glass room through the waterfall and noticed a very available river of melted chocolate in the room below. "Aha!" He shouted as he danced toward the elevator. "Open both sets of doors, if you please," he said, all business, "We've got a life to save."

Once both the room and elevator door were opened the next thing was to get the girl into the elevator. The rescuing seemed to hit a snag here, as this fairy tale bride was a bit chubbier than the one from the day before. "You don't work out much, do you?" grunted Willy as he half carried, half dragged the girl into the elevator. He panted as he hit the button to close the door. "Not that that's a problem or anything. I mean, I like a girl who can enjoy her food." The elevator dropped through the waterfall and landed on top of the river. Hard. After Willy had peeled himself off of the roof of the elevator and sniffed disapprovingly he traded elevator-feud-mode for fairy-tale-princess-rescuing-mode. (Which is also known as Prince-Charming-mode, but in case you haven't picked up on it yet, Willy Wonka wasn't up on his fairy tales and therefore had no idea that he was being so err… princely.) "Right then," he said, straightening his robe, "No worries! I'm here to rescue you!" With that he unceremoniously rolled the girl out of the elevator and into the river.

She sunk.

Willy spent five horrified seconds watching the last strands of blonde hair disappear under the thick chocolate before beginning the best rescue in his power. That is to say, he began hopping up and down and screeching. Now this is a part of the story that I should go back and change just to make you all happy, but I don't think that I will. I've told you the truth and that's that. Well, anyway, there was a sort of luck that followed Willy Wonka, because the girl hadn't been under water too awfully long when a set of pipes dropped down from above and began sucking up chocolate. The sight of a slightly chubby and thoroughly chocolaty figure being sucked into the tubes was enough to finally galvanize the candy maker into action. He dove dramatically from the doorway of the elevator just in time to catch the girl's feet before they disappeared up the pipe.

A few minutes later Willy Wonka lay panting on his minty grass while a group of Oompa-Loompas clustered around him poking, prodding, and grunting to each other. At last he sat up and wiped the chocolate out of his eyes. "I'm fine," he declared, "But I think I killed her." He pointed at the indistinguishable chocolaty blob lying on the grass nearby. "Twice," he winced. One of the Oompa-Loomas went over to investigate.

"But she's not dead!" he said. Actually, he didn't actually say it. It was really a strange sort of sign language that they used to communicate. In this instance he jumped up and down three times and then pulled on his ears right-left-right. "Really?" Willy said, rolling to his knees and scooting over. He now had the brilliant idea of seeing if she was breathing. Yup. "Well!" he said, rocking back into a sitting position. "See. I told you there was no problem. She just…" He scrunched up his nose and looked at the Oompa-Loompa. "If she's not dead then what's going on?" The Oompa-Loompa closed his eyes and imitated snoring. "Oh," said Willy Wonka. He and the Oompa-Loompa exchanged impish grins.

That night when Prettylina showed up Willy was ready for her. He was sitting on his bed laughing softly to himself. "Well?" she asked, but this time there was open hostility in her voice. "What?" said Willy innocently. "Do you care to explain how Sleeping Beauty came to have her entire face painted with permanent dye?" She shrilled. Willy grinned but quickly replaced it with an innocent face. "It's an Oompa-Loompa sign of friendship," he protested. Prettylina narrowed her gaze. She was truly frightening. "Sorry?" he tried. She snorted and disappeared. "Soo… the next bride arrives tomorrow," he shouted at the trail of glitter, "Right?"


End file.
